Heinlein Readers Discussion Group

On January 23, 2003, the Heinlein Readers Group Discussion Room was open to all who
wished to share stories and remembrances about Virginia Heinlein. This was the second such
gathering. The log for the first can be found on the
Master Index page under the title
"The Passing of Ginny Heinlein"
A complete obituary is given here:

From: David M. Silver <ag.plusone@verizon.net>

Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group meeting, tomorrow, 1/23/03

Date: Thursday, January 23, 2003 1:07 PM

The following was written by Robert
James (docjam00@aol.com) and transmitted to various news outlets.

It has already appeared in some and will appear in other newspapers.
Feel free to pass it on to whatever paper that might cover the Butler,
Mo., area, LN. They may contact me, as Secretary-Treasurer of The
Heinlein Society for verification, if you wish. I'll provide you, by
email, my telephone number which they will require (if you don't still
have it). I have a high definition scanned [6 mg.] photo of her and
Robert skating in 1952 at Snow Valley, California, during their tour of
National Parks, if they can accept e-mail attachment of a .tif document.
It's the same one that appears in Grumbles from the Grave.

Virginia Heinlein passed away peacefully in her sleep in the early
morning of January 18, 2003. She was 86 years old. Mrs. Heinlein was the
widow of famed science fiction writer, Robert A. Heinlein, author of
Stranger In a Strange Land and 55 other books, who died in 1988. Her
death followed a prolonged bout of respiratory illness, including
pneumonia, as well as a broken hip sustained on Thanksgiving Day, 2002,
requiring surgery and a long recovery. The couple had no children, but
countless readers around the world refer to themselves as "Heinlein's
Children."

Virginia Gerstenfeld Heinlein was born April 22, 1916, in Brooklyn, New
York, the daughter of a dentist. She went to the Packer Collegiate
Institute, a college preparatory high school, where she finished in
three-and-a-half years, always on the honor roll. She attended New York
University, majoring in chemistry. She lettered in swimming, diving,
basketball, and field hockey. She also reached national competitive
levels in figure skating, the sport that became her lifelong passion. In
the late 1950s, she served on the U.S. Olympic Committee for Skating.
In time, she came to speak over seven languages, including French,
Latin, Italian, and Russian.

Graduating in 1937, she worked for Quality Bakers as a chemist until
1943, when the WAVES was formed. She enlisted immediately and was
commissioned as a WAVE lieutenant, serving first at the Bureau of
Aeronautics, then at the Naval Air Experimental Station in Philadelphia
in 1944 and 1945. She met Robert Heinlein there, working as a civilian
aviation engineer because the Navy would not overlook his medical
discharge due to tuberculosis in 1934. She served as his assistant on
several classified development projects as a chemist and aviation test
engineer.

After World War II, she came to Los Angeles to study for an unfinished
doctorate in biochemistry at UCLA. She married Robert Heinlein in Raton,
New Mexico, in October 1948. Thereafter, the two were inseparable; those
who knew them spoke often of their intense and abiding love for each
other. She became his closest companion, aiding him in his writing, and
traveling the world with him. Virginia shepherded Robert through two
severe near-death illnesses in the seventies through constant care and
love. She took over the business aspects of his writing career, freeing
him to focus on his writing. Together, they made a special project of
organizing local and national blood drives and facilitating cooperation
among all the blood collecting organizations in the world.

Shortly after his death in 1988, she moved to Florida. She gathered a
selection of her husband's letters in Grumbles from the Grave, printed
for the first time his travel memoir Tramp Royale and political handbook
Take Back Your Government (originally titled How to Be a Politician),
and oversaw the restoration of several texts she felt had been badly
edited, including Red Planet, Puppet Masters, and Stranger in a Strange
Land.

Throughout her life, she loved reading, cooking, gardening, music, and
politics. In recent years, declining eyesight and physical health
curtailed some of her favorite activities, but she began and maintained
an active presence on Internet venues devoted to study of her husband's
works, pursuing this new hobby with much energy.

She endowed the Robert Anson Heinlein Chair in Aerospace Engineering,
established on August 28, 2001, at Annapolis, by a gift of over $2.6
million, in honor of her late husband, a graduate of the Naval Academy's
Class of 1929.

She also helped to found The Heinlein Society, an educational charity
dedicated to paying forward to generations to come the many Heinlein
legacies.

She also endowed the public library in Robert Heinlein's birthplace of
Butler, Missouri.

Readers have often remarked on the strength, intelligence, and power of
his female characters; his fictional women were often based on Virginia
Heinlein. As science fiction writer Spider Robinson said, "several of
Heinlein's women bear a striking resemblance to his wife Virginia."
Many of Heinlein's books were dedicated to her. Virginia, or "Ginny" as
she preferred to be called, was his sounding board and source of ideas;
she originated the idea that became Stranger in a Strange Land. She was
his first reader and trusted critic. Robert Heinlein once said she was
"smarter, better, and more sensible than I am." In a 1961 letter, he
said, "She is what I feel to be a good person in the word's simplest and
plainest meaning. Which includes lashing out with her claws on some
occasions when others may consider it improper. I don't give a damn
whether Ginny is 'proper' or not; I like her. I like her values." At the
end of one of his later books, Job: A Comedy of Justice, the final
sentence has been read by many as Robert Heinlein s own tribute to his
beloved wife: "Heaven is where Margrethe is."

There will be no funeral. Her ashes will be scattered at sea in the
Pacific, as were her husband's. Mourners are asked to make blood
donations in her memory, and may make charitable donations to The
Heinlein Society at
http://www.heinleinsociety.org, or P.O. Box 1254,
Venice, California 90294-1254.

AGplusone: I just read it. LA Times reporter, referred her to Jerry
Pournelle. He said, Read Elephants. She came back to me, said, "Can you
give me a one-line quote from it?" Awk!

BJ Maranta: LOL

DenvToday has entered the room.

DenvToday: Greetings to one and all.

aggirlj: Hi there.

Musiquelle26: howdy

AGplusone: We do what we can, but I couldn't see how without about a fifty
word or more precŪs I could do it and make any sense at all.

DenvToday: For some reason, my IE link isn't working.

OscagneTX: howdyhowdy

DenvToday: I keep expecting SAcademic to enter the room.

aggirlj: Hi Osc, you missed my driving lesson.

Musiquelle26: I know that feeling

OscagneTX: No, I saw it.

aggirlj: :-P

AGplusone: But I think she's going to write a nice obit for Ginny. The LA
Times. maybe I'll get lucky and she won't quote me by name

OscagneTX: I didn't know what to reply. Nothing I thought of was either
witty or crude enough. %^)

aggirlj: :-D

Musiquelle26: I read your post David on her

SageMerlin has entered the room.

Doc4Kidz has entered the room.

Musiquelle26: it hit hard

OscagneTX: howdyhowdy

aggirlj: Quite extensive. What a life.

Doc4Kidz: Hello

AGplusone: Hi, Alan, Barry

aggirlj: Hi Alan & Barry.

AGplusone: I propose we tell Ginny stories to start ....

Doc4Kidz: hello, all

AGplusone: Has everyone read Spin-off?

aggirlj: Not sure???

DenvToday: Naturally, she isn't really gone. Mama Maureen came back to take
her to Tertius. She's going through rejuvenation treatments even as we
speak.

OscagneTX: i have

pixelmeow has entered the room.

pixelmeow: hi, all

BJ Maranta: Lol, denv

DenvToday: Hiya pixel

aggirlj: Hi Teresa.

Musiquelle26: I sneezed as the cat came in...

Musiquelle26: :-)

pixelmeow: :-P

pixelmeow: who is denv?

AGplusone: Spin-Off was Heinlein's testimony about the advances in medical
science spinning off from aerospace research. He used himself as example.

DenvToday: Mrs. Heinlein

OscagneTX: Pix... are you the one that writes the pictures page?

pixelmeow: no, that's jump101

pixelmeow: steve.

OscagneTX: ah. thanks

pixelmeow: denvtoday, who are you, may I ask?

pixelmeow: I don't know that handle.

AGplusone: They were vacationing. at the top of some vocanic mountain on
the island, maybe Tahati, I forget, led to by a cable car, he had that
almost stroke, caused by the blocked artery to his brain. Paralysed.

DenvToday: My name is Ron. Nice to meet you. I've been coming on and off
for a couple years now.

pixelmeow: Okay, thanks!

Musiquelle26: did I see that someone had posted the list of Screen names
and names on their site?

pixelmeow: I found that my link to the reading group site is not right.

Sarah Hoyt: She said she would like to keep track of his progress and that
she thought Robert would be pleased. She also sent him a white teddy bear
that this bit gallut (Robert is 5'8" and 180 lbs mostly muscle) still
sleeps with.

Sarah Hoyt: After that we corresponded fairly regularly, lately on email.

BJ Maranta: :-)

aggirlj: brb

Sarah Hoyt: She found the announcement of my first book sale in Locus and
sent me a letter with very useful business advice.

Sarah Hoyt: And she was nice and kind and fun to talk to. And that's my
Mrs. Heinlein story. I managed to call her Ginny on AIM, because she
requested it, but in my mind she's always Mrs. Heinlein.

pixelmeow: Ooo.

Doc4Kidz: I couldn;t call her "Ginny" either

pixelmeow: I spoke to Ginny in IM,

pixelmeow: and very nervously asked if I could call her Ginny...

pixelmeow: she said something like "of course, dear"

Doc4Kidz: So she called me "doctor" to get back at me ;-)

pixelmeow: got all warm and fuzzy!

Sarah Hoyt: :-D

jilyd has left the room.

Sarah Hoyt: I lived in fear I would do something she didn't approve of.

Musiquelle26: I was told that she preferred it, by others, so did so rather
than offend

Doc4Kidz: I blamed it on reading Robert's books, of course

jilyd has entered the room.

pixelmeow: Me too, saray

BJ Maranta: Howdy, dee

pixelmeow: sarah, even

Musiquelle26: Hey there

DenvToday: It's remarkable that any person would gain computer skills at
her stage of life. It's rare. Once people hit the magic age of 70 or so,
they're resistant.

pixelmeow: hey dee

Sarah Hoyt: Not that I thought she would be upset, but because I held her
opinion in so much importance.

DavidWrightSr: She insisted that I called her Ginny and then I timidly
asked if I might refer to Robert as Robert and she said, "of course, that
was his name"

Sarah Hoyt: Hi.

Sarah Hoyt: I always called him Mr. Heinlein.

pixelmeow: yep.

pixelmeow: I was so intimidated.

jilyd: Hi, Pix, everyone. Thanks for the invite.

Sarah Hoyt: Because we got into these "my Robert" things on AIM.

Doc4Kidz: can I tell my story?

pixelmeow: do!

BJ Maranta: Go, doc

Sarah Hoyt: Please.

Musiquelle26: Actually, I have seen a lot of seniors turn into geeks as
they learned how it could enhance their social lives

AGplusone: Yeah, yeah, go Doc

Musiquelle26: DavidWrightSr: I was flabbergasted the night that David AG first told me
that he had been online with a very nice lady in Florida. It took me a
couple of minutes to figure it out.

DenvToday: Musique, I'm glad to hear that!

Doc4Kidz: well, if you've ready the newsletter, there's a pic of us that my
wife took Sept. 8th, 2001

aggirlj: I'm back, hi Dee.

Sarah Hoyt: My newsletter arrives mangled. I usually get only one page.

Musiquelle26: (Call me Steph, shorter)

Sarah Hoyt: Truly weird.

Doc4Kidz: We were staying at my mom's St Augustine place and we had just
done the 1st blood drive in Philly

AGplusone: http://www.heinleinsociety.org/news04.html has the photo.

Doc4Kidz: and she invited me and my family, no less, to join her for
lunch...

AGplusone: We're using a heavier paper next issue. Postal Service
definitely folds, spindles and mutilates

sdavido has entered the room.

Doc4Kidz: I've been less nervous going into surgery (mine AND others')...

sdavido: Hello.

aggirlj: Hi there.

pixelmeow: hi!

DenvToday: I have a minor story.

Doc4Kidz: my kids were 2,4,6 and 8 then

OscagneTX: howdy

aggirlj: Doc :-) nice memory.

AGplusone: Welcome, Solomon, is it? I'm David

Doc4Kidz: and they misbehaved throughout the meal, as Bill can attest to

DenvToday: Yes, very nice :-)

sdavido: Yeah. Solomon Davidoff. Hello David.

LadyS122 has entered the room.

pixelmeow: hi!

Sarah Hoyt: I understand that. My jewish friends accuse me of being too
roman -- they say I deyfied the Heinleins. I don't think so. I think it's a
matter of having been raised in Heinlein's books.

AGplusone: (but not your father .... :-))

Sarah Hoyt: In a way they were my parents.

Doc4Kidz: but Ginny was very understanding and made me feel a little better
although I was completely mortified at their behavior

jilyd: Nice, Doc.

DenvToday: People forget that one of the three boys in his first books,
Rocket Galileo, was Jewish.

Sarah Hoyt: (mind parents. I'm not insane.)

AGplusone: Time for another toast from someone? Water if you wish, juice,
or that odder stuff.

Musiquelle26: I have not been faced with entertaining out of my home with
the kids yet...

DenvToday: his first book, that is.

jilyd: Dencv, I disagree about age 70, too. You should meet my mom.

Musiquelle26: I dread it

pixelmeow: drinks all around

sdavido: I grew up on Heinlein's words as well . . . and Mrs. Heinlein gave
me one of my first real professional compliments.

Sarah Hoyt: Bourbon okay?

pixelmeow: absolutely!

AGplusone: *to Ginny*

aggirlj: Hear, hear, *clink*.

Sarah Hoyt: Clink.

pixelmeow: *crash*

BJ Maranta: Semper Ginny

Musiquelle26: *clink*

BJ Maranta: clink

sdavido: Clink

BRSTAHL: clink

AGplusone: tell us, Solomon, please.

DenvToday: jilyd, I'm very pleased to be proved wrong! I based what I said
on people I know. I'm thrilled it isn't generally so.

SubCrid Death: *clink, gulp, crash*

mkeith54: clink

jilyd:

OscagneTX: *clink*

DenvToday: clink!

Doc4Kidz: gulp

LadyS122: ***crash***

DavidWrightSr: Hoch!

aggirlj: brb, watching pasta.

Dehede011 has entered the room.

pixelmeow: hi!

sdavido: I wrote a piece, some of you may have seen it, for The Heinlein
Journal, on the presentation of Communism in Starship Troopers.

Dehede011: Good evening

BRSTAHL: Hello

SubCrid Death: Watching pasta? Interesting show, Jane? :-)

BJ Maranta: Howdy, Ron

LadyS122: I matured to Heinlein's works... until then I was a fairly lost
(but adept at faking it) teenager (19), then I met the most wonderful man,
and he loaned me his Heinleins... Talk about epiphany.

Musiquelle26: I have a small story

pixelmeow: go

sdavido: Mrs. Heinlein wrote in a letter to say that I had captured
Heinlein's beliefs correctly.

AGplusone: is it webposted anywhere Solomon? And what did she write?

BJ Maranta: Go, Steph

sdavido: I still remember proudly showing it to a local collegue, who said
"So? What does she know?"

Musiquelle26: I was down on myself about how much I contributed to the
writing with my Partner

jilyd: She started her working career in the days of a PBX with plugs, and
a speker hung around her neck. Adding machin was not even a ten-key but 100
ket manual and pull down the crank. At 72, she still works full-time as an
accountant

sdavido: I almost slapped him.

AGplusone: LOL, so what did HE know?

Sarah Hoyt: Yeah.

Musiquelle26: and she had recently dropped me a note in response to a
question I had on a story

jilyd: Uning a computerized system ANd has a PC at home. Got her first PC
before I did, in fact. Got a Ham radio ticket at 60.

sdavido: My piece was in HJ#2, I think, and her letter printed in #6 . . .

DenvToday: I will never forget the day I met Mrs. Heinlein online. I had
been coming to the group on and off for a year or so. I will always
remember the IM sent to me -- I think it was Dave AG, who told me that
SAcademic was Mrs. Heinlein.

DavidWrightSr: No 3 Solomon

AGplusone: go on Steph, referring to Ebon, who passed on lately?

DavidWrightSr: #3

sdavido: THanks!

DenvToday: My jaw literally dropped.

Musiquelle26: Somehow her note, on an unrelated subject, had the effect of
rejuvenating my faith in my writing, as it showed me how much she had
helped Robert by being their to read the first editions, so to speak

Musiquelle26: Yes

BJ Maranta: :-), Steph

Musiquelle26: I was mostly an editor, or spring board for her creativity

aggirlj: :-)

DenvToday: Mus, that's wonderful.

sdavido: I regret not getting the opportunity to know her better.

Musiquelle26: No, she was wonderful

pixelmeow: As do I.

LadyS122: jilyd: Wish I had met Ebontress.

AGplusone: Everyone always asked Ginny, who said she thought herself the
same thing, to write her biography or about Robert. She always said, No, I
couldn't do any more of that.

pixelmeow: I wanted to know her better, but I did not want to "crowd" her.

AGplusone: I wish she had!

Musiquelle26: Hopefully, people can...thru her writings

jilyd: Btw, Steph, loved the picture. Glad she was in it, too.

Musiquelle26: thanks

pixelmeow: yeah, I saw that today.

pixelmeow: Nice. :-)

pixelmeow: Finally have some faces in my mind.

Musiquelle26: It was taken a year after her cancer surgery

jilyd: Are any of her writings onthe web?

BJ Maranta: Still need a pic of you, Pixel!

Musiquelle26: no

pixelmeow: eh?

sdavido: May I ask how you all heard of her passing? Harry Turtledove told
me.

OscagneTX: And the next time I hear you denigrating your cuteness, Steph,
I'm going to hang you up by the thumbs and whip you with a small kitten.
%^)\

Musiquelle26: I have to edit, and then either web-publish, or shop them
around

jilyd: Commercially published?

aggirlj: Me too, saw the pix . .

AGplusone: The hardest thing in the world was/is/ever shall be to write
about the person you love.

Musiquelle26: lol

DenvToday: pixel, every time I saw her online, I tried to keep myself from
gushing. I succeeded most of the time.

pixelmeow: who do you think that is in "meet 2", 3, and 4???

BJ Maranta: hmmm

pixelmeow: Denv, I succeeded every time but two.

pixelmeow: I gushed on the newsgroup, IIRC

jilyd: Good to see your pix, too, Brian. Nice.

pixelmeow: and I gushed in email.

LadyS122: Steph is cute... how she manages to look like her father and
still be cute, is beyond me, but she does it. :-)

AGplusone: But I wish Ginny had done it.

DenvToday: Difficult, wasn't it?

AGplusone: For Ginny.

Musiquelle26:

pixelmeow: it really was.

AGplusone: Because goodness she could talk forever about Robert.

Musiquelle26: ZoŽ got the better looks, but she looks like me, so I don't
know how

pixelmeow: I think she heard so much from so many of us on how much we
loved her...

pixelmeow: I didn't want to bother her...

Musiquelle26: Ginny was very forthcoming in helping us who never met him,
know him

pixelmeow: or her to think I was some sort of weirdo.

jilyd: Lord, I wish I had saved our conversations. <>

BRSTAHL: A picture of Pixel last summer is at
http://brstahl.home.sprynet.com/_images/P9070006%20(Small) .JPG

pixelmeow: I knew it!

Sarah Hoyt: I lived in fear she thought I was insane.

pixelmeow: Sarah, I did the same thing.

Sarah Hoyt: I wish I'd saved our last AIM conversation.

pixelmeow: Me too.

BJ Maranta: And a good pic, too, Bryan!

pixelmeow: I was helping her with her computer,

pixelmeow: and I don't know how much good it did,

pixelmeow: but she got back online,

jilyd: Pixel, we kept telling her, but I don't think whe ever quite grasped
that we loved GINNY, not just Robert's widow.

pixelmeow: and was so sweet...

OscagneTX: pix looks slightly insane in that pic... %^)

AGplusone: It surprised the heck out of her. She thought, judging from what
she heard critically, that no one even thought about her. Just plugging
away in the condo, away in Florida, unable to travel.

pixelmeow: :-P Osc!

jilyd: she ever grasped.

DavidWrightSr: I tried to save all of ours, but I missed a few. I saw her
online a lot of times and wanted to talk but felt that I didn't want to
impose too much.

AGplusone: She was so pleased with the warm welcome she got from us.

pixelmeow: Me too, DaveSR.

pixelmeow: I'd see her online and wish her well...

pixelmeow: but didn't talk.

pixelmeow: :-(

pixelmeow: wish I had.

OscagneTX: me too

Sarah Hoyt: She told me to stop apologizing so much. :-) And she told me --
after a lengthy discussion ranging from the Illiad to kids, she said she
thought Robert would be proud of me. I'll al

aggirlj: I had just pasted her on the Heinlein list I had.

jilyd: AG, you mentioned a lot of the things she did in her life. Did you
know she was a serious photographer and that she painted?

Sarah Hoyt: ways remember that and hope it was true.

sdavido: That's always the way . . .

Musiquelle26: I imposed a few times...and was told it was no imposition

DavidWrightSr: I wanted to go over those conversations today, but got tied
up in another project and haven't had the chance yet

Dehede011: Jilyd said, "Pixel, we kept telling her, but I don't think whe
ever quite grasped that we loved GINNY, not just Robert's widow." that was
so difficult to explain to her.

OscagneTX: The only real times I saw her was in here, and I was too noob to
be confident enough to say anything. I just lurked.

AGplusone: I knew she took some beautiful photos of Robert. she told me
about painting, and she regretted she couldn't do that any more.

DenvToday: Do you all remember the James Earl Jones character from "Field
of Dreams"? He spent his life trying to avoid people telling him how much
his writing changed their lives.

DavidWrightSr: She always said that it was no imposition. She did have to
leave several times on Sunday morning to go to brunch.

DenvToday: I didn't want to be one of those annoying people.

OscagneTX: You know... I thin k she only addressed me directly one time.
She wanted to know if "Oscagne, TX" was the town I lived in. :-)

AGplusone: My favorite photo is the one she took of Robert sitting, looking
down and reading a book in his lap.

LadyS122: Denv - I know what you mean... it is always hard to tell how far
is too far, when you know there are so many other people just like you out
there who want to know that person.

Sarah Hoyt: Me too, I saw her on, but I didn't say anything most of the
time.

AGplusone: She was very proud of that photo. they used it on book jackets,
Glory Road, etc.

DenvToday: Yes, exactly, Lady.

AGplusone: Gifford used it on his RAH:A Readers Companion.

jilyd: I know. We talked a lot at 6:00 am, but I was always afraid I would
be imposing on her.

DavidWrightSr: I did talk at length with her about getting a set of her
photos and putting them into a photo gallery on the heinleinsociety.org
website, but unfortunately, that was just after her pneumonia and she was
still trying to get caught up

AGplusone: I used it, cropped as a portrait, on the old reading group
website.

sdavido: I'll have to try and get that one for the Centennial Collection.

jilyd: AG knew her so much better than I, and he assured me that she would
not allow herself to be imposed upon.

pixelmeow: Yes, dee.

DenvToday: He was a handsome devil as a young man.

BJ Maranta: Although I never had the chance to talk to Ginny on chats, I
have a bit of a story...

AGplusone: We have it. Gifford sent it to Jane Davitt who passed it around
to us.

Musiquelle26: go Brian

aggirlj: ga

BJ Maranta: Not really a Ginny story, but something I want to share

BRSTAHL: Tell it.

pixelmeow: go

BJ Maranta: We have a pair of peach-faced lovebirds

AGplusone: Ginny lost the only copies of the photo she had, somehow.

BJ Maranta: The first one we got was a common, Green, Peach-faced, and we
named him Bobby

AGplusone: Perhaps a visitor left accidentally with it.

Sarah Hoyt: My Robert would like a blow-up of a Heinlein photo for his
locker.

BJ Maranta: After a while, we got him a companion, a Yellow, Peach-faced
love bird, who we named Ginny.

pixelmeow: awwwww

Musiquelle26: That's great

OscagneTX: %^)

Sarah Hoyt: That is sweet.

BJ Maranta: They got along fine. And then one day, "Bobby" laid an egg

DenvToday: Yeah, nice.

aggirlj: Nice.

pixelmeow: ROFL!

Musiquelle26: lol

BJ Maranta: And it hatched

sdavido: LOL!

DenvToday: oops

Sarah Hoyt: LOL.

LadyS122: hehehehe

BJ Maranta: So, Bobby became "Bobbie" and Ginny became "Djinnie"

sdavido: Laz figured that might happen . . ..

DenvToday: Maybe "he" was a cross-dresser

OscagneTX: hehe

aggirlj: Excellent.

BJ Maranta: You can see them at: http://www.magsi.com/Aviary/lovebirds.html

Sarah Hoyt: Crossbirder.

DenvToday: lol Sarah

Musiquelle26: Cross-plumer?

sdavido: Good pics.

pixelmeow: beautiful!

Dehede011: Good pics

Musiquelle26: beautiful

aggirlj: Really nice.

DenvToday: Brian, you should have named "him" Libby. Started out as a boy,
later became a girl.

Musiquelle26: lol

BJ Maranta: They've had about 6 or 7 clutches so far

aggirlj: Dan....

LadyS122:

sdavido: *grin*

BJ Maranta: Yah, but we wanted to keep the phonetic, Ron

DenvToday: Good point. lol

Sarah Hoyt: Yes, they should have kept to the prophetic instead...

jilyd: My moother is due to get a new puppy as soon as it is weaned. She
has been having trouble thinking of a name. Thought of Ginnie, because teh
pup was born in Va., but wasn't sure she liked it. When she found out about
our

jilyd: Ginnie's death, she decided to go ahead with it.

DenvToday: Have Mrs. Heinlein's papers and writings been archived?

DenvToday: I'm sure there's a treasure trove there.

Sarah Hoyt: According to the buzz on writers' nets, yes. For fifty years.

BJ Maranta: We even kept one of their babies. Because of the colouring, we
are sure he's a boy, and we named him "Kip."

OscagneTX: When is she making her last trip to the Pacific?

DenvToday: Kip. Great name.

aggirlj: Cool.

Doc4Kidz: During my visit, Ginny asked me about my rockets and the
conversation turned to Robert's role as expert commentator during the
Apollo 11 flight...

Dehede011: Doc, that sounds interesting

Doc4Kidz: I told her I bought the CBS video copy of the coverage just to
see if it had RObert's parts...

DenvToday: Sarah, why clean at all? It's like eating -- you just get hungry
again.

RAHfan147: One of the guys I went to school with told stories about turning
on his tractor and killing farm cats with the fan.

TreetopAngelRN2 has entered the room.

AGplusone: several of the photos were of a large orange cat. Said to self:
PIXEL! Ginny came back

Dehede011: Yes, Sarah and it is really different isn't it

aggirlj: Hi Elizabeth.

TreetopAngelRN2: Hi Everyone!

AGplusone: said no, Plushbottom Taffrail or some such.

LadyS122: Hi Elizabeth.

Musiquelle26: I acquired a wolf/husky/chow by gifting just after I lost my
long time canine friend

DenvToday: Hello!

Musiquelle26: he thinks he can clean like a cat

OscagneTX: howdy T&A.

BRSTAHL: What was the phrase from Friday, "rodent control engineers"?

jilyd: Like Joan Rivers said about hating hosework--make the beds, wash the
dishes, and 5 months later it's all to do over agian.

aggirlj: That must be a pix.

AGplusone: Large really nasty looking tom.

RAHfan147: Hello TTA!

DenvToday: lol I like that!

Sarah Hoyt: They say there's a breed -- I think it's siberian something --
that actually has the endorsement of the asthma association. People hwo are
alergic to cats tollerate these.

mkeith54: HI

BRSTAHL: Hello

TreetopAngelRN2: Lookit all these lovely people!

Dehede011: On a farm a cat is a working member of the team

SubCrid Death: Feline-less right now, but should I find the ability to
faithfully/effectively serve a feline, I'm thinking "Catherine" as a name
if female, as in the tsarina. Not Cathy, not Cate, and definitely not Cat.
No idea about male...

OscagneTX: Sarah, the hairless kind?

SubCrid Death: ... names, off the top of my head.

DenvToday: I've been searching for a Jellicle cat, sadly to no avail.

mkeith54: Sarah , a cat siberan that is a house cat?

RAHfan147 has left the room.

Musiquelle26: Abyssinian do not tend to trigger the allergy

pixelmeow: hey e!

TreetopAngelRN2: Been looking for a tiger, myself, Siberian that is!

SubCrid Death: Not a Heinlein connection AFAIK, but anyhow...

Dehede011: Question, at Bonny Doon did the cats get the run of the
outdoors?

aggirlj: LOL

Musiquelle26: nor do Sphinx's, but they are a poor, unfortunate breed

Reilloc has entered the room.

Sarah Hoyt: No, hairless still cause allergy.

jilyd: I have read that a oonce a week bath removes nearly all of the
dander allergy problem with cats.

pixelmeow: hey LN!

DenvToday: I wonder if the Heinleins ever saw "Cats" on broadway.

Musiquelle26: afk...time for kids beddybye

Reilloc: Hi, all.

Sarah Hoyt: These guys are actually long hair, but only one coat and
there's some mutation in their saliva.

OscagneTX: howdy

pixelmeow: Night, Filly

aggirlj: later.

Dehede011: Howdy

BRSTAHL: Hello

DenvToday: Hello!

aggirlj: Hi

jilyd: Night, Steph.

BRSTAHL: Night

BJ Maranta: K, Back

OscagneTX: L Front

mkeith54: cat, bath... hum.. any skin left afterward?

Sarah Hoyt: I'll find it again eventually.

TreetopAngelRN2: LOL

BJ Maranta: LOL, Osc

Sarah Hoyt: We do have a cornish Rex.

mkeith54: on the human that is?

OscagneTX: comeon... that's hackneyed.

Sarah Hoyt: Dan fell in love with her and that was that, though paying for
the cat is immoral, somehow.

LadyS122: some cats actually like baths.. just have to start em young...

Sarah Hoyt: She has tiny curly hair. Miranda.

Sarah Hoyt: And she's dad's princess.

BJ Maranta: But the fur sticks to your tounge...

aggirlj: Bought a Balinese that wasn't supposed to shed, right.

TreetopAngelRN2: Smudge hates snow...we just found that out!

Doc4Kidz: Well friends, I wanted to say my say since I missed the "wake".
Goodnight.

aggirlj: Brian.

BJ Maranta: Nite, Barry

Dehede011: Nite, Doc

Sarah Hoyt: Goodnight.

DenvToday: Bye for now, Doc.

aggirlj: By Doc.

BJ Maranta: Old Steve Martin Joke, Sis

TreetopAngelRN2: Night doc!

OscagneTX: gnight

BRSTAHL: goodnight

aggirlj: :-)

Sarah Hoyt: You know, I was feeling all blue and out of sorts and couldn't
figure out how to mourn.

Doc4Kidz has left the room.

Sarah Hoyt: I mean, when my grandmother died, I wrote a story, but now....

Sarah Hoyt: So, I bought a full set of juveniles and donated them to
Robert's literacy class.

aggirlj: Perfect.

mkeith54: Bandit ,our husky, likes showers. My mother-in-law didn't get the
door to the bathroom closed. Two years later I can still hear the screams.

BJ Maranta: Nice, Sarah

OscagneTX: nice

LadyS122: wonderful.

TreetopAngelRN2: Cool Sarah!

Sarah Hoyt: And I seem to feel better now.

jilyd: Neat, sarah.

DenvToday: Sarah, lovely thing to do.

mkeith54: Nice

Sarah Hoyt: It was just... I had to do something.

aggirlj: Yeah, that's what does it you feel so helpless.

OscagneTX: I couldnt' think what to post. No words came. What I finally put
was so lame I can't even remember what it was.

DenvToday: I remember the day RAH passed away. Like yesterday.

pixelmeow has left the room.

Sarah Hoyt: Me too.

Sarah Hoyt: The day I moved to my first house. My erstwhile landlord drove
up to tell me.

AGplusone: Hi, LN. that was a great letter you sent the Butler home town
paper for Ginny.

Sarah Hoyt: I sat in that empty house and felt lost.

mkeith54: Yeah, I heard on the way to the base, wasn't worth a damn the
rest of the day

AGplusone: What's the major paper in StLouis?

mkeith54: St louis post

TreetopAngelRN2: I read it in the newspaper after work, broke down in
tears.

mkeith54: Post-dispatch that is

DenvToday: I called a talk radio show that day. Before the internet, before
that sense of community. I started a discussion on the talk show.

aggirlj: Tell more.

AGplusone: They might be an appropriate object of a copy

DenvToday: The lines lit up. Many people called, shared what RAH meant to
them.

TreetopAngelRN2: I was living in Lakewood CO at the time

DenvToday: Tree, no kidding? I'm in Denver. It was on KOA.

TreetopAngelRN2: I prolly heard parts of it!

Reilloc: I'll call the guy again about it tomorrow, Dave.

Sarah Hoyt: I'm in Manitou, Denv. Have we met? Con?

AGplusone: Thank you much.

pixelmeow has entered the room.

aggirlj: wb

DenvToday: Sarah, I don't think so. Oddly enough, I've never been to one.

BRSTAHL: I first saw the news on RAH in the Washingon Post, while in my
initial State Dept. training.

Reilloc: Like I wrote you, it's not much of a newspaper.

pixelmeow: okay that was weird.

Sarah Hoyt: BTW, the organizer of MileHi has promissed to let us have a
blood drive this year, so I should get on that.

OscagneTX: re

Sarah Hoyt: I haven't been able to make any of the meetings.

DenvToday: I plan to in the future. I've been having some back problems,
but they're improving.

Sarah Hoyt: Great.

AGplusone: Got two nice calls from the LA Times today. they wanted photos
and interviews with authors too. Gave them a list. Talked to Jerry
Pournelle who was very gracious to them.

TreetopAngelRN2: Let us know a date Sarah, I love MileHi and plan on being
down there this summer...making plans to terrorize Colo Springs with Jane!

LadyS122: I have to go... laundry to finish and then I have to get ready to
meet some friends... Be Well everyone, and tell Steph good night from her
dad and me.

jilyd: GInny and I were talking one morning, and I told her about the tiny
little church choir I spend some time with.

Sarah Hoyt: Need one.

TreetopAngelRN2: Purple is E! She is a purple kind of person

BJ Maranta: K

AGplusone: We use blue for you good guys. Me, I'm red to me. Puts
everything in proper perspective.

Musiquelle26: I always tried to make sure my text was black, bold, and
larger font if Ginny was on

SubCrid Death: AIM 4.7.2 here

aggirlj: ga Dee

OscagneTX: How about someone tell a Ginny story?

jilyd: They don;t read music, and a lot of what they do is not in teh
hymnal, learned by ear. It is a challenge trying to learn to accompany
them. I mentioned that there was a lot new for me, but it is fun.

BRSTAHL: E! your text is purple, but your name is pink

AGplusone: lives purple prose life, eh, .... when the elk in Montana are
smaller than buffalos?

labert8: Here's a Ginny brief . . . the first time I was chatting and it
was revealed to me who X was (she was anonymous then). . .

Sarah Hoyt: I tried to make my text large but she told me she didn't need
it THAT large.

AGplusone: /ga, labert

Sarah Hoyt: go.

TreetopAngelRN2: LOL

jilyd: Ginny said she thought I must find fun in everything I do. I think
she was porjecting her own joie de vivre.

aggirlj: Yeah, good advice, 'swhat I try too.

Sarah Hoyt: Yep.

labert8: I don't think I managed another comment that night. Silly, as
later chats showed her to be wonderfully generous in conversation, and fun
to listento.

AGplusone: But she did find fun. In everything. Even talking about the
little wax candies they used to sell in corner candy stores to kids.

OscagneTX: wax candies or candles?

TreetopAngelRN2: That's cause Ginny loved people

Sarah Hoyt: She was fun. And interesting. And amazingly well read.

Musiquelle26: Hey, I knew wax lips and the candy cola bottles made of
wax...

aggirlj: candies.

AGplusone: How you bought one, sipped a little. Pressed the wax back togher
and put it in your pocket ...

Musiquelle26: loved 'em

jilyd: That's what I mean, AG. She found fyun in everything.

AGplusone: yeah, them, Steph

BPRAL22169: That came up in a conversation of mine with her, too -- wax
lips. I ran away from home when I was 4 to get some of those.

Musiquelle26: some small stores in the rural south never went away from
them, apparently

labert8: I absolutely loved the story about the morning chats with the
howework-less student.

Sarah Hoyt: :-) -- running away from home for wax lips.

aggirlj: They still make 'em.

jilyd: I remember those. Going to the Ben Franklin 5 & 10.

AGplusone: Joel Rosenberg'd daughter, "JudyJediJudy!"

labert8: Sounded so much like her to apologize and then continue while
coaching on the impotance of school.

AGplusone: Great handle she used.

DenvToday: Oh my...blast from the past. The Ben Franklin five and dime. I
spent half of my childhood there.

Musiquelle26: But then, I grew up in the summers at a tiny pitstop in
Mississippi's history...sold rock candy and the oldfashioned candy sticks

Sarah Hoyt: Well it reminded me -- I got late to pick up Robert from
swimming and I honestly didn't think, when he whined at me, I said, "I was
talking on AIM with Mrs. Heinlein and I didn't want to tell her I had to
go."

Sarah Hoyt: Total silence in the pool waiting room.

RMLWJ1 has entered the room.

Sarah Hoyt: Ended up a mini-Heinlein fan meeting.

Sarah Hoyt: Short Heinlein fans.

aggirlj: Wow.

BJ Maranta: LOL Sarah

AGplusone: Ginny used to talk about the books they had availble to kids
when she grew up. She read all the boys ones.

Sarah Hoyt: No. Really.

RMLWJ1: Good evening.

DenvToday: Hello

Musiquelle26: evening

aggirlj: Hi.

BRSTAHL: Hello

BJ Maranta: 'evening rmlwj1

Sarah Hoyt: Hi.

TreetopAngelRN2: LOL, Sarah

OscagneTX: howdy

jilyd: Steph, I kept my large bold font as default, so I wouldn't forget
for Ginny. Sometimes startled other friends, when I forgot to turn it down.

AGplusone: girl ones bored her.

labert8: The "girls' stories must've frustrated her endlessly.

RMLWJ1: Thanks for the invite, David.

aggirlj: Most of them were boring. Boy stories are more interesting.

Musiquelle26: I seem to remember her commenting on the Nancy Drew stuff
once

AGplusone: Dave Wright's great guy

jilyd: Hi, alphabet. :-)

Sarah Hoyt: I think they had the same kind of stories when/where I girl
stuff when I grew up.

AGplusone: Yes. Dont remember what she said.

AGplusone: Do you, Dee?

Sarah Hoyt: They were rather nauseating. So I read "Boy club adventures."

DavidWrightSr: Ah Gee. Blush!

jilyd: Don't remember seeing any comments about that, AG.

AGplusone: my impression was she sorta liked Nancy

TreetopAngelRN2: Read boy stories, too!

AGplusone: drove cars, had adventures, and all that

Musiquelle26: I seem to remember her commenting on them taking the boy
formula and running with it

AGplusone: much better than most she felt

Musiquelle26: I played with GI Joe, so I had little use for girl stuff in
anything

aggirlj: Well Nancy didn't play with dolls either.

Musiquelle26: was stunned to learn that A C Crispin was a woman.

Musiquelle26: I read a lot of her stuff before I knew that

labert8: Nancy didn't play by the 'social' rules. Not shy and demure. Had a
touch of Poddy in her.

AGplusone: Reporter asked me today. Do you think she was an unusual woman,
with a chemistry degree, and working in the late 30s .... talk about a
leading question, LN!

jilyd: I would have loved to see Robert write some girls' stories in more
recent times. He ouwld have set up some great role models, I'll bet.

TreetopAngelRN2: I agree

jilyd: Course, I would love to have Robert still writing, period!

TreetopAngelRN2: Girls who could think for themselves...

Musiquelle26: I think the heroine in Emergence by David Palmer was
influenced by Poddy and Friday

OscagneTX: Thank you, Grundy Editor-lady. :-(

Sarah Hoyt: I'm sure Robert is still writing.

jilyd: I tired to get Ginny to didtate some of her memoirs. She said after
Grumbles, she would never touch writing again.

Sarah Hoyt: It's just we can't get the stuff.

AGplusone: I actually liked Puddin' when she got revenge in the story that
Jeane and Ed mentioned ... the one where the college girls pick on the
foreign girl because she's different.

DenvToday: I've seen very odd reactions to RAH's female characters. They
were smart, independent, as good or better than men in every way...yet
still some saw him as sexist because the women didn't resent men.

AGplusone: Puddin' was a sweet bright young lady and by the time she got to
college, very clever and vengeful when she saw a wrong.

SageMerlin: Okay, folks. I have to drop out to ...no I don't. Just thought
of another way to do this.

AGplusone: Her knife was very sharp.

BJ Maranta: RAH coud've written girls storys under the pseudonym of Roberta
Heinlein...

OscagneTX: The fem character I like (and can't remember name) is the young
lady who liked to fly in Luna.

Sarah Hoyt: I have crazy pseudo feminist female acquaintances who insist
Heinlein was sexist and never read any of hte books... which goes to
prove...

QinJingYou has entered the room.

AGplusone: Holly

DenvToday: Sage, good to have seen you.

AGplusone: Hi, Dave.

pixelmeow: hey!

BJ Maranta: Howdy, Djinn

BRSTAHL: Hello

TreetopAngelRN2: I guess they haven't discovered the smart independent
women don't have to resent men.

Musiquelle26: The Menace from Earht?

QinJingYou: HI everyone

jilyd: Not exactly because the don't resent men. Sometimes I get a little
uncomfortable with the "bat teh baby blue at my hero and manage him by
making him think it's his own idea" bit, myself.

jilyd: I appreciated Maureen's always saying Thank you. Men never seem
entirely sure that it is a gift to us, too.

pixelmeow: Yep.

AGplusone: Sorry .. squats

BJ Maranta: Lol, David

Sarah Hoyt: BUT -- okay -- don't tell him I said this, but he is, oh,
shoot, name amenesia, D.T.'s dad. He NEEDS managing at times.

pixelmeow: jake

pixelmeow: ka-jake

pixelmeow: ;-)

labert8: jake-ass

pixelmeow: *love* that book.

Sarah Hoyt: He's not that bad. It's a mathematician thing.

Sarah Hoyt: The world MUST make sense.

Sarah Hoyt: Even when it doesn't.

pixelmeow: yep.

BJ Maranta: The

BJ Maranta: oops

TreetopAngelRN2: that's why I married a baker...

labert8: only sometimes. don't get me wrong, if I had to live in a book,
number might be it.

pixelmeow: mememememe!!!!!

Sarah Hoyt: I picked up the thank you thing. ANother way to freak men out.

BJ Maranta: The "don't bother me with the fire alarm, I'm working on a
formula" thing.

jilyd: If I were married to a baker, I would not be able to walk through
the door.

RMLWJ1 has left the room.

pixelmeow: I can get that way with an algorithm...

Sarah Hoyt: It IS exactly like the fire alarm thing.

TreetopAngelRN2: he does have nice buns...

pixelmeow: who???

aggirlj: :-D

pixelmeow: your hubby?

BJ Maranta: OUCH, E!

Sarah Hoyt: The baker.

DenvToday: lol

jilyd: Her baker husband.

pixelmeow: then mine must be a baker too...

Sarah Hoyt: Mine three.

pixelmeow: ;-)

TreetopAngelRN2: LOL

aggirlj: lol

pixelmeow: awww, all the men are blushing...

BJ Maranta: E, that almost cost Carol a Keyboard

pixelmeow: *look*...

aggirlj: Yes,

TreetopAngelRN2: Yikes!

mkeith54: TTA you owe 1 keyboard, one monitor and a laptop

TreetopAngelRN2: all for a bun joke

jilyd: My father had a bakery, but his speciality was cake decorating. I
still have his professional tips and nails, but I am no good at using them.

pixelmeow: 'prentice needs to take up some of this cleaning!!!

BJ Maranta: I used to work in a bakery

AGplusone: Ginny story, c'on. Someone tell one.

pixelmeow: go!

aggirlj: Righto, more drinks, how 'bout a toast.

Musiquelle26: go for it

jilyd: YYYYay.

DenvToday: Icing tastes better when you dip your finger in the bowl. It's
okay on the cake...but finger dipping is better.

AGplusone: Ginny was once very embarrassed.

aggirlj: To a woman I only new by name but who I know was so loved here, to
Ginny and Robert holding hands!

pixelmeow: gurgle *crash*

jilyd:

DenvToday: clink!

aggirlj: *clink*

OscagneTX: *crash*

Sarah Hoyt: Quaff -- the shirt is getting soaked.

BJ Maranta: Hear Hear, Jane; *Clink* *SMASH*

labert8: clink

BRSTAHL: clink

TreetopAngelRN2: *clink* *crash*

mkeith54: clik\nk

Musiquelle26: clink

AGplusone: Her eyes were really getting back last spring when she came back
out of the hospital. Couldn't see that Snowy had fleas. Laura Haywood came
by and took the cat immediaely to the vet. Ginny said, "I' couldn't see
it." What do I do?

aggirlj: I'll go open the trough, move the gate, where's the broom.

pixelmeow: hey, who hid the broom???

Musiquelle26: I got the broom...I'm a witch by all accounts anyway

aggirlj: :-(

AGplusone: Introduced her to Advantage. She nearly kissed me after it
worked.

pixelmeow: ah.

pixelmeow: I bet, David.

aggirlj: Yay!

AGplusone: She was so upset she could tell Snowy had them.

Sarah Hoyt: It works? In the south?

pixelmeow: fleas are a difficult thing to live with...

BJ Maranta: :-) David

Sarah Hoyt: Good work, David.

aggirlj: We thankfully don't have fleas at this altitude and cold.

AGplusone: Ginny said it did. Snowy was an inside cat. Never let him out.
Best he could get to was garage.

jilyd: White animals attract more fleas than dark ones, too.

Sarah Hoyt: Oh, yeah. Very thankful.

Musiquelle26: I've never noticed that, D

TreetopAngelRN2: I'm glad you don't have fleas, too, Jane!

BPRAL22169: He wanted to be out -- but the neighbors complained at FL

Sarah Hoyt: Otherwise that plague around here would be epidemic, instead of
endemic.

aggirlj: Woman!!!!!

pixelmeow: Really...

aggirlj: To E

TreetopAngelRN2: she said "we"

Sarah Hoyt: 's okay. We'll check when we meet her tomorrow. BEFORE she gets
near our cats.

aggirlj: :-D

Musiquelle26: lol

TreetopAngelRN2: LOL

Sarah Hoyt: [Sarah ducks from slap with dead fish]

AGplusone: Front claws removed so he didn't destroy all the furniture and
furnishings. You know those photo on Dennis' website of Snowy with the
pillows on the couch. She embroided them all.

aggirlj: Wait.

pixelmeow: it always gets back to food, doesn't it...

AGplusone: Before her eyes when in the can.

aggirlj: Germans do know how to embroider.

aggirlj: Both sides are pefect.

OscagneTX: afk

BPRAL22169: Yes -- crewel work, I think, while Robert was in the hospital.
They're all optical illusions.

Sarah Hoyt: They taught me to do that in school. Not German, though.

AGplusone: Women of our mother's generation know how to embroider. They
just pretend they don't, like our mother, Jane.

Sarah Hoyt: I mean, both sides perfect.

aggirlj: Lots of Germans in Co. Sprgs. good friend showed me some of her
stuff. Hmmmmm.

AGplusone: Lest they be put to work doing it.

BJ Maranta: LOL, David

pixelmeow: I'd like to see them, Bill...

Musiquelle26: I tried embroidery

Sarah Hoyt: Well, personaly, I grew up in the early twentieth century --
Portugal is a few years out of phase -- and I had grades in it. In school.
Counted as much as math.

TreetopAngelRN2: My womanly art was learning how to make soap and cook.

KimKinnison12: sorry to be late..been struggling with computer problems all
evenig..but I do want to pay my respects

DenvToday: Hello

pixelmeow has left the room.

Reilloc has entered the room.

KimKinnison12: (sniff..sniff) ok..who's got the thionite

Musiquelle26: An EE Doc Smith fan?

BJ Maranta: Folks, I have to head out also.

AGplusone: see you, Brian.

Sarah Hoyt: Robert is learning to cook. Also, getting interested in girls.
Are those two linked in boys, also?

aggirlj: By Bro, right?

BJ Maranta: I may be back later, if not, then see ya around some other time

DenvToday: I'm sure we'll have a few more toasts, Kim.

Sarah Hoyt: By.

TreetopAngelRN2: Night Brian!

jilyd: One thing Ginny missed a lot while she was so down in health was not
being able to do her own cooking. Illnes had affected her ability to taste,
for one thing, but her helpers didn't cook the way she did.

BRSTAHL: Good night

AGplusone: come back when we talk about books, sometime

QinJingYou: bye Brian

DenvToday: Night Brian

mkeith54: bye

Musiquelle26: I moved to Fayettenam and got excited to find they had an E.
E. Smith High School

Musiquelle26: nite Brian

KimKinnison12: sure Mus..isn't everybody? hehe

pjscott100: I regret I have to get going, but just wanted to pop in and say
Hi. Miss y'all. I had such a good time in the Lanai the other night.

BJ Maranta: For sure, Monsieur Argent

AGplusone: She missed her beds of roses!

BJ Maranta has left the room.

AGplusone: And reading!

aggirlj: Come back soon too.

QinJingYou: See ya Peter!

Musiquelle26: turned out NC had a politician by that name, and it was not
for the Doc

TreetopAngelRN2: Night Peter

jilyd: She missed painting, too.

pjscott100 has left the room.

KimKinnison12: heh..too bad

DavidWrightSr: Ginny told me that the thing she missed the most, living in
California and Florida, was not being able to see the mountains.

jilyd: She painted in wotercolour, before her eyes gave out.

Dehede011: I hadn't realized she painted

Musiquelle26: Watercolours were what convinced me never to be an artist

Sarah Hoyt: You know, we drive by their house, when we take the kids to the
zoo. The water pools are empty and cracking. :-(

TreetopAngelRN2: I would die without my mountains....and SNOW!

AGplusone: Ginny story. One thanksgiving I got a case of the quaints. Never
imagined Ginny was reading the newsgroup. Every one was posting "Happy
Turkey Day" yadda yaddd yadda

Musiquelle26: so my hat is off to her

jilyd: She was an amazing mix of modern woman ahead of her time, and the
skills of a Victorian lady.

Dehede011: Sarah is that in Co. or Calif??

jilyd: GA, AG.

Sarah Hoyt: Colorado.

aggirlj: Okay, lesson here, enjoy life, do as much as you can. Toast to the
unbelievable energy and embrace it.

Dehede011: Thank you

Musiquelle26: *clink*

KimKinnison12: Formal courtesy was always prominent in RAH's writing..guess
we know who reinforced the trend

Sarah Hoyt: Clink.

DenvToday: clink!

jilyd:

BRSTAHL: clink

TreetopAngelRN2: *clink*

Sarah Hoyt: It was for sale when we were looking for houses, but it was 100
k out of our range.

AGplusone: So I posted a little story about Thanksgiving 1951 at the Chosin
Reservoir. Marines. Frozen turkeys, attack across the ice. Mentioned Pat
Frank's Hold back the night.

KimKinnison12: Clink!

mkeith54: gulp, clink... good thing I don't have to work tomorrow

Dehede011: That is what always amazed me about the Heinleins. The hard work
they put in on ordinary things

Sarah Hoyt: Not sure I could live there, anyway. I'd have been tiptoeing
through the rooms, afraid of disturbing some past echo.

Sarah Hoyt: Yes.

DenvToday: Dave, were you there?

Sarah Hoyt: Go, Dave. More.

AGplusone: Got a letter out of the blue. Said I'm Ginny. Read your post.
Have a hardbound copy of Hold Back the Night. Can't read it any more. Would
you like it?

Sarah Hoyt: Oh, good Lord.

AGplusone: hell no. I was nine in 51

TreetopAngelRN2: Whoa!

labert8: Yikes.

Musiquelle26: ha...age pinned down :_)

aggirlj: And you said . . . .

jilyd: Here's to a lady of incredible generousity of spirit.

Sarah Hoyt: Do you know what I would give for ONE book with the Heinlein
ex-libris?

Sarah Hoyt: Hear, hear.

Musiquelle26: *clink*

Sarah Hoyt: Clink.

aggirlj: *clink*

OscagneTX: b

labert8: cheers!

OscagneTX: *crash*

AGplusone: The boy who babysat us out at our Aunt Bess's, Albert Siers, or
Sears was there. He never came home. Mentioned him in the post.

BRSTAHL: clink

TreetopAngelRN2: *clink*

AGplusone: Missing in action. sicne 1951

aggirlj: Oh.

Dehede011: I have one book Ex Libris

Sarah Hoyt: David, that's why you remind me of my grandfather. You're not
that old -- you're the age I remember him at.

SubCrid Death: *clink, gulp, crash* (belatedly)

Sarah Hoyt: When I was three or so.

Sarah Hoyt: You never notice the people you love aging...

Musiquelle26: The two Davids are the Uncles that fostered my "bad" taste in
literature!

aggirlj: No.

TreetopAngelRN2: unless you live far away and don't see them often...

Musiquelle26: and then it hits like a ton of bricks

AGplusone: So I have a drink for Albert Sears, USMCR, who never grew old
enough to have a drink in Ohio. He was eighteen. In 1951.

aggirlj: And that too, but you blink and see them over again as they we.

aggirlj: were.

Sarah Hoyt: Yeah, that too. My dad.

Musiquelle26: hear, hear

AGplusone: Every Thanksgiving. Ginny liked it.

OscagneTX: Later, folks. Hoist one for me.

Musiquelle26: ciao, Osc

DenvToday: Here's to Sears!

aggirlj: See you Osc.

jilyd: Bye, Osc.

DenvToday: Bye Osc

TreetopAngelRN2: Night Osc!

AGplusone: Real Chicken Soup story.

BRSTAHL: Good night

labert8: later Oscar

OscagneTX has left the room.

AGplusone: Nite Osc.

jilyd: To Sears.

BRSTAHL: To Sears

TreetopAngelRN2: To Sears

aggirlj: To Sears.

AGplusone: (click)

Sarah Hoyt: To Sears.

Sarah Hoyt: Crash.

mkeith54: To Sear Ho YA!

AGplusone: a little early this year, Albert ...

labert8: An extra one won't hurt

aggirlj: Okay, I've been very good E. Been drinking Pepsi, now time to get
the GM.

Sarah Hoyt: I need to go put the kids to bed. They'll read till eleven, but
we have to pretend...

Musiquelle26: I have to stick to non-alkies

DenvToday: There ya go!

Sarah Hoyt: Bye guys.

TreetopAngelRN2: Go for it Jane!

Sarah Hoyt: It's been good.

Musiquelle26: later, Sarah

AGplusone: But I have a copy of Hold Back the Night in my shelves, signed,
Ginny Heinlein, November 1999.

Sarah Hoyt: See you tomorrow, Jane.

TreetopAngelRN2: Night Sarah!

DenvToday: Night Sarah. Good to see you tonight.

mkeith54: bu\ye Sarah

jilyd: Goodnoght, Sarah.

aggirlj: Night Sarah, tomorrow.

Sarah Hoyt has left the room.

BRSTAHL: Good Night

jilyd: I'm calling it a night, too. David, are you logging?

DavidWrightSr: Got it

BRSTAHL: I've got to take off now, but a final toast, courtesy of Jubal
Harshaw, "Here's to our noble selves, there's damned few of us left."

TreetopAngelRN2: Night Dee!

Musiquelle26: bye

AGplusone: That was how she really disclosed to me that she had been
lurking the Heinlein chats.

aggirlj: Nite Dee.

mkeith54: Hear Hear!

DavidWrightSr: And one less now!

DenvToday: Excellent toast!

TreetopAngelRN2: Good one Bryan! and Good night!

jilyd: Aye, Biran. Goodnight.

jilyd has left the room.

BRSTAHL has left the room.

aggirlj: Nite

mkeith54: Nite

AGplusone: "And most of us are dead, Byran."

Musiquelle26: I believe I was made aware of who she was by one of you two

Davids

Dehede011: Dave, I thought I had told you I had introduced her to the
Heinlein chats

AGplusone: click, und crash.

labert8: Thay did the same to me Musiq

labert8: tongue tied me right quick.

Dehede011: I remember telling her who you were and describing your efforts
for RAH

BPRAL22169: She was very wary until she found out we are mostly harmless,
so she didn't want us spreading it around indiscriminately.

AGplusone: Nope. she anticipated the introduction, Ron.

Musiquelle26: I was surprised, asked Pop if he knew, but I was already more
involved than he in the group by then

AGplusone: You just conned her (or Bill conned her) or you both connned her
into lurking.

Dehede011: Okay, so she moved more quickly than I thought

TreetopAngelRN2: "mostly" harmless...

aggirlj: Right E.

Musiquelle26: I about had a fit the first time crybaby insulted her in ones
of his mindless drivels

Dehede011: No, I remember the lurking but I also remember letting her know
who you were and that you were a good guy

aggirlj: Okay, only story I have . . . short.

AGplusone: The post did it. As I said, I got a case of the quaints that
Thanksgiving.

Musiquelle26: ga

labert8: She was too tall for someone as small as crybaby to fluster, I'm
sure.

aggirlj: First time I read a thread with her sign on didn't know until
finally reading, mouth hanging open.

Dehede011: You too?

Dehede011: Hey guys, how tall was she?

aggirlj: Sure you all had same first time experience, but had to tell it.

labert8: metaphorically, that is

AGplusone: At least 5' 10" is my impression.

Musiquelle26: model height

Dehede011: Okay, I was always curious. How about RAH

TreetopAngelRN2: I had to call Charlie in to look the first time I saw
Ginny post...like I couldn't believe my own eyes.

AGplusone: Tall graceful woman.

SubCrid Death: I think I'm going to head off. I never knew Ginny, which
kinda makes me feel a bit out of place, as it were. I, however, am going to
read some Friday before I head off to bed, after finishing my current
usenet post sweep.

Musiquelle26: nite Sub

TreetopAngelRN2: Night Dan!

DenvToday: Nighters Sub

aggirlj: For some reason I see her smaller.

AGplusone: wish you had

labert8: Night, enjoy

SubCrid Death: G'night, all

aggirlj: Night.

SubCrid Death has left the room.

Dehede011: How about RAH, how tall was he?

Cmaj7Dmin7 has entered the room.

BPRAL22169: 6' even

Dehede011: Thanks Bill

Musiquelle26: Small packages have dynamite, Silver girl?

aggirlj: Alright, I'm going to look at those pictures again.

AGplusone: I think we all did. Yes, she had some influence on Robert's
writing ... not to turn him into a fascist, but surely to make him write
strong, decent lovely and atttractive women

aggirlj: Correct Steph.

DenvToday: I just want to know how the heck he trimmed that moustache.
Seems to me it would take a straight razor.

Dehede011: Let me throw out something she and I discussed

AGplusone: Asimov writes like a little jealous man

aggirlj: ga

AGplusone: Not only about Ginny but Leslyn

Dehede011: A lot of sailors during my era carried a straight razor to trim
with

Dehede011: It seems to me that he wrote Ginny as his model long before he
met Ginny

DenvToday: Also comes in handy in bar fights. lol

Musiquelle26: Like he met his dream girl?

Dehede011: I think so

KimKinnison12: who really cares what Mr. 'i'm SO full of myself' Asimov
thought about much of anything?

AGplusone: My daddy used a straight razor, had one just like that, but in
later years he used a standard Gillette.

AGplusone: Did the same thing.

AGplusone: carefully

Dehede011: I discussed that with Ginny. She admited he used her for a model
but had no opinion about his pre-Ginny stories

BPRAL22169: I don't think safety razors really became popular until the
1950's.

AGplusone: Dad was born in '07 too

Dehede011: No, safety razors go back at least another 10 years

SageMerlin has left the room.

DenvToday: Disappointing about Asimov. I think the first sf I ever read was
the Foundation Trilogy. I found the RAH juveniles shortly thereafter.

BPRAL22169: Yes, they were introduced in the 30's, but theydidn't really
catch on immediately.

AGplusone: right, after '50 when I pid attention, but there still was that
straight razor and the pig bristles brush in the cabinet.

KimKinnison12: i wonder if you put asimov, clark and ellison in the same
room whether the egos would reach critical mass

Musiquelle26: I had trouble reading Asimov, but enjoyed the lectures our
Talented and Gifted class got hold of

aggirlj: Ginny seems to be the kind who rarely looked back only forward.
Maybein later years, as she got older, we all will be looking back then.

Dehede011: Asimov wasn't a bad guy in a way but he didn't have the mind to
be RAH IMHO

Musiquelle26: he spoke well on theoretical science

BPRAL22169: Asimov and Ellison were frequently in the same room -- they had
dissing contests at conventions.

DavidWrightSr: I had a long conversation over beers with Willy Ley, when I
was in college.

Dehede011: Very friendly according to my Uncle

BPRAL22169: That would have been about 1959 or so, DWSr.?

Cmaj7Dmin7: RAH died on Truman's birthday, I think...

DavidWrightSr: Right

labert8: Folks, thanks for the evening, and the chance to remember a
sterling individual; hope to "see" you all again soon.

Musiquelle26: you too, Labert

DenvToday: Night labert. Good to see you.

Dehede011: I guess Gordon D was the only one I ever met on that level

Dehede011: Nite, Labert

DenvToday: Shai! Dorsai! lol

DavidWrightSr: We talked some about Heinlein, but I can't recall any
details.

Dehede011: Yes

TreetopAngelRN2: Night Labert

mkeith54: This spring we're taking the camper and going to Independence and
then down to Bulter. Two very insturmental men in my life

labert8 has left the room.

Musiquelle26: If you read fantasy at all, younger authors, Robert Asprin
and Lynn Abbey are extrememly personable

TreetopAngelRN2: Love Asprin's work

DenvToday: Does anybody read Eric Frank Russell anymore? I loved him as a
kid.

Dehede011: When you are in Butler look for the BBQ joint that used to be on
the street going through town

AGplusone: Harry the gentleman. That was long before they started
"reevaluating" Truman the 'failure' who barely filled FDR's shoes and had
the termenity to fire The Emperor's General.

Dehede011: Just south of the turn off to the Heinlein House

KimKinnison12: fantasy...musiquelle..my formula for personal reading
happiness is 'if there's a sword on the cover, leave it on the shelf' heh

Musiquelle26: I detest revisionist history

Musiquelle26: I'm an old ERB fan, so it set me up to love fantasy as much
as SF

BPRAL22169: I picked up about 7 books of his recently. Saw them in a bunch
together at a bookstore and grabbed them all.

AGplusone: I do too, but they've got one point, Steph. The ones too close
to the action are sometimes blind.

Musiquelle26: Plus, I'm a gamer

Dehede011: David, According to my Uncle, Truman was a man so much who he
was that that stuff would never have touched him

BPRAL22169: My copy of The Great Explosion had gone missing.

mkeith54: Harry did the right thing, I would have courtmartialed him and
broke him out of the Army

mkeith54: I'll see if it is still ther, love BBQ

TreetopAngelRN2: Gee, Steph...we should compare libraries

AGplusone: Christ! When I was a kid, Truman was a"lightweight" who never
would have been president, but for the accident in Hot Springs.

DenvToday: Poor MacAurthur. His ego just wasn't big enough.

Musiquelle26: I have actually gone so far as to track down multiple books,
written in different decades, to do indepth papers on Historical Events or
Persons

AGplusone: He was a scrappy fellow, lucky to beat Dewey, but that was it.

Musiquelle26: I plan to eventually catalogue mine on my website

Musiquelle26: (library)

Dehede011: Look I am a Republican and Harry was human. He beat a cold fish

DenvToday: I'm always wary of "great" political leaders. They usually gain
their reputations by other people's blood.

mkeith54: maybe not but he steped up to the plate and swung like a man.
would you have wanted to make the call on the A-bomb. Remember, he knew
what would happen

Dehede011: I don't agree with Harry on anything but that guy was a Mensch

KimKinnison12: didn't RAH have something to say about the difference
between statesmen and politicians?

AGplusone: Even Ginny the Republican forever appreciated Truman.

Dehede011: I think RAH liked him too

DenvToday: Apropos of nothing, I saw a film called "The Emporer's New
Clothes" today. Wonderful film. Stars Ian Holm as Napoleon. Just had to
tell somebody asbout it.

AGplusone: a lot, see To Sail Beyond the Sunset

mkeith54: I'm a hard coe republican, and I'd voted for Harry after he made
the call

Dehede011: David you know that boxers often fight hard against guys they
deeply respect out of the ring. True?

mkeith54: Coe= Core

BPRAL22169: Truman has come to look better and better as our leaders get
worse and worse. He was the last "citizen-President."

Musiquelle26: Ian Holm....

TreetopAngelRN2: I saw that one Denv! It was wonderful!

DenvToday: David, I memorized most of "Ulysses" after reading TSBTS.

mkeith54: Thanks, I couldn't think of the prase

AGplusone: True. And he said, I ain't a gonna write 500,000 letters to
wives and moms saying I deeply reget ...

Dehede011: Read closely the beginning of the Korean War. Harry had nary a
clue

mkeith54: phrase

Musiquelle26: As in Fifth Element, Alien, From Hell?

AGplusone: regret

DenvToday: Tree, I agree. Very funny in its way, and marvelous
performances.

Dehede011: Enough politics

mkeith54: ageed

KimKinnison12: clean up government..drop a 20 megaton on washington..

mkeith54: agreed, fat fingers tonight

AGplusone: Well, that happens. Most don't have a clue until it stick them
in the eye. Acheson's speech leaving Korea out of the list of what we would
protect, doomed Korea, and started the war.

TreetopAngelRN2: Yes, Steph!

Dehede011: Yeah but that was only a human mistake

AGplusone: Coms saw it as a signal that we wouldn't defend Korea

TreetopAngelRN2: Birthday boy just wandered in

mkeith54: only if you can get them all there

AGplusone: Back to Ginny, another story?

TreetopAngelRN2: please!

AGplusone: Another toast.

DenvToday: Hear hear!

Musiquelle26: toast, toast!

Dehede011: She was the best

AGplusone: Tell everyone what you told me when I betrayed confidence and
told you about report Elizabeth.

mkeith54: To the grand dame of them all

AGplusone: To her!

DavidWrightSr: Memory Eternal!

AGplusone: click

Dehede011: GA Elizabeth

mkeith54: click

QinJingYou: click

Dehede011: hear hear

Musiquelle26: CLINK

TreetopAngelRN2: What did I say, David??? Put me in a spot!

AGplusone: Ginny had bedsores, miserable shit care, and no one was doing
anything about it. I'm a little drunk and still mad about it.

Musiquelle26: GRRR!

TreetopAngelRN2: I know about that...I let David know what was going on
wityh Ginny from my point of view. They also were not taking care off her
pain.

BPRAL22169: I was reallysurprised at that.

Dehede011: Hospital or Retirement Hotel, David

mkeith54: I'm so mad I'm shaking.

TreetopAngelRN2: She was not being turned in bed, with a broken hip, folks
need help with that.

Musiquelle26: I have been in and out of hospitals with Ebontress for years.

mkeith54: There is simply no excuse for that kind of treatment no matter
where she was

Dehede011: This was in the Hospital, E

AGplusone: I was so pissed I had to check with Elizabeth before I wrote one
of my really you dont want to read it letters. I wished we could have taken
a collection and flown Elizabeth to Fleet Landing

Musiquelle26: I have seen excellent nursing, and I have seen nightmare
nursing

AGplusone: I damned near did.

Musiquelle26: But that is making me as angry as the one who tried to dose
Paula when she had not asked for pain meds

TreetopAngelRN2: I just wish I could have been there and raised some hell
of my own...It's what I do...take care of the elderly...

Musiquelle26: My hat is off to you, then!

Dehede011: Frankly that is why we need extended families. I know stories in
my own family where the family did what the hospital wouldn't

AGplusone: E! should write a book: What to do when they take your mother
into the hospital; and I've told her so.

Dehede011: Yes,

Musiquelle26: I helped some with my great-granma...tore me up, but at least
she had human contact

BPRAL22169: Well ... there is a certain extent to which Ginny had all the
family she would allow.

TreetopAngelRN2: if that's what they need, but facilities need to be called
on neglect

Musiquelle26: when her other son put her in the home, she lost what little
mental facility she had

TreetopAngelRN2: Maybe for my Master's thesis

AGplusone: Christ, third degree bedsores on her heel.

AGplusone: !st degree on the back of her calves.

Dehede011: That is the part about a real family in the immediate vicinity.
I had some trouble several years ago. My family stepped up, told me to go
to hell, and looked out for me

TreetopAngelRN2: makes me angry!

DenvToday: Interesting point. Social Security, medicare, etc have had
unforseen effects. Isolation of the elderly...sticking grandma into a
nursing home...breakup of the extended family.

mkeith54: I visit my grandmother often, very often and the nursing home
knows that when iI find something wrong, the whole world knows about it
before I'm Done. Only took a couple of times and things changed

KimKinnison12: Denv..don't blame it on SS and medicare..blame it on our
selfishness and 'busy' lives

Musiquelle26: I agree Kim

Musiquelle26: in part

AGplusone: When our mother was dying Jane and Andrea my wife went over my
mother with a fine tooth comb every time they say her.

DenvToday: Kim, I wasn't really assigning blame. I was just commenting that
unintended consequences happen.

AGplusone: Me, I'm chicken.

AGplusone: saw

TreetopAngelRN2: I work in long term care...not everyone puts their elderly
in the nursing home because they won't take care of them...some can't take
care of them

Dehede011: True, and some have no family

Musiquelle26: I can't take my grandmother in because my mother lives with
me. They hate each other. And it tears me up because I always told her I
would take care of her

BPRAL22169: People don't seem to realize a nursing home cannot give them
all the care they need.

AGplusone: yeah, imagine what happens to them ... or you, when the time
comes

KimKinnison12: keeping us alive well past our times isn't helping the
situation either.

TreetopAngelRN2: It's very expensive, and the only way for the bills to get
paid is to pace them in a facilkity

Musiquelle26: Instead, she has her oldest daughter to do it, but all of my
Pop's genereation argue and bicker over that detail

DenvToday: As they say, be kind to your children. Someday, they'll decide
which nursing home you'll go to.

Musiquelle26: I hope not to outlive my usefulness...selfish of me, I guess

TreetopAngelRN2: True Bill, I can't give all my patients the care they
deserve, but I do the best I can.

Dehede011: Be kind to little boys, someday they will grow up bigger than
you and remember you beat them up. LOL

Musiquelle26: If you care at all, you're ten steps ahead of some that I see

Sarah Hoyt has entered the room.

Sarah Hoyt: Returned.

AGplusone: Yep, still on Sarah

Sarah Hoyt: Missed the drinks.

DenvToday: Tree, it's just not possible in any nursing home situation.
They're necessary, many have no family. But we should understand the
inherent shortcomings.

Musiquelle26: the nurses that scare me here are the ones who are doing
things the HMO way, like it is a big machine

BPRAL22169: I remember a boss's wife was in a recovery home for about a
year before she died -- the bills would have totalled more than $1 million
if he didn't have reinsurance as well as Medicare.

TreetopAngelRN2: What the elderly need are people who WANT to work with
them, not people who take the job because it's the only one they can
find...

mkeith54: Just last month my wife and I signed ourselves up for long term
heath care under the DOD program for retirees. After seeing the costs for
my grandmother, I couldn't burden our son with that.

KimKinnison12: our amazing paradox..we value human live so much we take
nazi like extremes to preserve it, but the quality of that life afterward
is of little interest to anybody

AGplusone: And most wind up with bare medicare. And it doesn't cover the
care. They keep shiftingthem between actute and convalescent care to pay
for it.

DenvToday: Tree, that's why the family is always best. I know it's not
always possible. But it's a shame that social pressure to keep elderly
parents in your home has disappeared.

Musiquelle26: Paula's grandmother, somewhere in her early 70s I think,
privatley "sits" with elder people

Musiquelle26: she enjoys it, and has a deft touch with them... her clients
have mostly been early stage Alzheimers

AGplusone: so many days in acute, it runs out, so many in convalescent, and
back to acute until one excuse or another, then another cycle. Ambulances
companies get rich.

TreetopAngelRN2: I know people who have been married for years, getting
divorces so the healthy partner doesn't lose the house and savings they
worked for...

Dehede011: You know, public care like hospitals are probably fine if there
is a family to back stop them

Musiquelle26: It's shockingly easy for me to picture what Laz's partner
said about the old folks of Earth in Tale of the Adopted Daughter

AGplusone: Ginny was lucky. in a way, but do you know what she paid for a
24-hour keeper at minimum wage, annually.

Dehede011: ?? Steph

AGplusone: ? Figure it out.

Dehede011: Yes, I do David, it ain't pretty

DenvToday: Dave, I happen to know. I had to have it for nearly 3 months.

TreetopAngelRN2: Lots...and that didn't include her housing and food

Musiquelle26: The part about the old folks being denied the very right to
eat, being declared dead

Musiquelle26: on Earth

Musiquelle26: We keep living longer, but we're not setting things up to use
that extra time enjoyably

AGplusone: one out of ten of those keepers were competent ... a lady named
Joannne was the only one Ginny could stand. So when Joanne's relative,
daughter, whatever, ran into problems, Ginny sent her and probably paid for
her lawyer.

Dehede011: Have you run into the theft that goes on in those places??

Sarah Hoyt: Oh, yeah. I believe that. You don't even have to be old. When I
was 28 I went into the hospital with pneumonia. The doctors couldn't figure
out what I had. When I was in intensive care, Dan went home to see that our
kids had so

AGplusone: Don't get me started about my mother's rings.

AGplusone: A place we paid for ...

TreetopAngelRN2: Things go missing all the time

Sarah Hoyt: meone to look after them, and the doctors double-teamed me,
trying to convince me to have some very dubious treatment for cystic
fibrosis, which they wanted me to have -- if you know what I mean -- and
when I said it was dangerous,

Sarah Hoyt: They tried to convince me that my life was useless.

DavidWrightSr: My wedding ring was stolen in my doctor's office!

Sarah Hoyt: And I was a burden on my husband and two small sons.

TreetopAngelRN2: One family was up in arms about their mother's
rings...turns out a second cousin who had visited took them

AGplusone: ... and it hurt her soooo much to know she'd lost them ... her
wedding ring and all.

DenvToday: I was very lucky with the agency I used. All Russian emigres.
The lady I had had been a doctor in Moscow, but now had to work as a
personal care provider.

Sarah Hoyt: gahhhhhhhhhhhh. Dan took all the jewelry home while I was
there.

Dehede011: In the Homes I used to visit they were called "companions."

TreetopAngelRN2: We try to get the family to take all the jewelry and not
bring expensive items...

Sarah Hoyt: Yes.

Dehede011: Right E.

Musiquelle26: It was always our first thing with Paula

Dehede011: But some don't even have families

Musiquelle26: even her glasses went home with us, since she did not need
them much, and they were always moving her around

Dehede011: Do you guys run into the demand for "tips."

TreetopAngelRN2: If rings get loose, we remove them and place them in the
safe for the family or POA to pick up.

AGplusone: Gut them if I did.

Musiquelle26: I give hugs to the nurses who help most

Musiquelle26: Found out that it helped the nurses

mkeith54: Yea, he doesn't work there anymore

TreetopAngelRN2: If anyone working my floor demanded a tip...they would be
out the door

Musiquelle26: HOORAH!

TreetopAngelRN2: Hugs are the best tip of all!

DenvToday: Well, I'm off to bed. Thank you all for the opportunity to share
about Mrs. Heinlein.

Dehede011: I'll never forget the nurse that had unwittingly given a patient
permission to die. So he did and she realized why

Musiquelle26: good eve

DenvToday: I hope I see you on Saturday.

DenvToday: Night all.

TreetopAngelRN2: good night!

Dehede011: Nite Mus

AGplusone: suffice it to say that I love nurses. I hate the the types that
seem to work most convalescent hospitals

Musiquelle26: not me

mkeith54: time to go, good night folks

Sarah Hoyt: I have to say, when I was sick, the doctors were insane, the
nurses saved my life.

DenvToday has left the room.

TreetopAngelRN2: night mike!

Musiquelle26: On more than one occasion, I have seen that, Sarah

Sarah Hoyt: Especially the male nurse who, late at night, came in to give
me a breathing treatment and found out I'd stopped breathing.

Sarah Hoyt: :-)

Dehede011: Dave you should have met this poor woman when she realized she
had unwittingly caused this person to die

mkeith54 has left the room.

TreetopAngelRN2: It's nice to know that people have had good experiences
with nurses

Sarah Hoyt: They were efficient, concerned, nice.

Sarah Hoyt: AND more knowledgeable than the doctors.

Musiquelle26: The doctor and nursing staff who tried to save Paula's life
will always shine in my heart for their true dedication

Sarah Hoyt: Also, upon hearing the accent, they didn't decide I needed to
HAVE some strange illness, worthy of a paper.

TreetopAngelRN2: sounds familiar:-D

KimKinnison12: must go also..i'm glad I made it in time to pay my respects.

Musiquelle26: nite, Kim

Sarah Hoyt: Nice seeing you.

KimKinnison12 has left the room.

TreetopAngelRN2: Night Kim!

Dehede011: NIte

Sarah Hoyt: So, should we few left have a toast?

AGplusone: Well, you remember the Glendale "Angel of Mercy"? MF killed the
mother of one of my friends and he was a cop. That man isn't going to live
the life term they pleaded him out to in wherever he is.

Dehede011: No, I was talking about something quite different.

TreetopAngelRN2: Ron you told about that one the other night, it's scary to
think that it might happen

AGplusone: But I'll be nice. Let's talk about something else.

Dehede011: Some elderly patients will die if you give them permission.

DavidWrightSr: I have a small story

Sarah Hoyt: Yes. Story.

AGplusone: go David

Musiquelle26: To Ginny, may she have skates of silver, and Robert to admire
her, wherever she may be

Dehede011: E It is also a blessing under the right circumstances

Sarah Hoyt: And may they have cats and friends and laughter.

TreetopAngelRN2: definitely, Ron...the trouble is knowing when it's a
blessing

Sarah Hoyt: Story?

Reilloc has left the room.

AGplusone: Oh, yes! The photo I've been sending around is that lovely photo
of them too. Thanks to Charlie Brown of Locus. High resolution as they
require.

Dehede011: In Deacon school it was passed on as something requiring
compassion and judgement. If they don't want to die they won't use the
permission

DavidWrightSr: I was reading TEFL and the story about David Lamb. I was
talking with Ginny and asked her if Robert could do that
minutes-to-graduation trick She said yes, and it always intimidated her.
No, intimidate is not the right word.

AGplusone: Highly impressed.

DavidWrightSr: Infuriate? Impressed?

Dehede011: brb

AGplusone: I barely remember the log of 2 and 3

Musiquelle26: heck, I have to start over with bonehead algebra when school
starts this summer

Musiquelle26: can't remember pies are square, hardly

TreetopAngelRN2: You can do it Steph! If I did, you definitely can!

DavidWrightSr: I once worked for a retired naval captain, class of 26. He
recalled Robert as being a 'bit weird'

AGplusone: the sum of the .... is equal to the angle of the ....

BPRAL22169: He was a bit weird at that age.

AGplusone: [I'm bad. I'll go home]

Musiquelle26: lol

DavidWrightSr: Actually, this captain was a bit weird himself at that age.

Sarah Hoyt: We're all a bit weird at that age. Well... this "we" was.

BPRAL22169: "Normal" people don't make great contributions.

Dehede011: David W. I used to see that in the service. The exceptional are
weird to the ducks

DavidWrightSr: Amen!

BPRAL22169: (though they make normal contributions often enough)

Musiquelle26: Then there's hope for me yet, 'cause I ain't normal

TreetopAngelRN2: He was SF geek before it was cool!

Sarah Hoyt: SF geeks aren't cool again.

Sarah Hoyt: Unless it's movie-SF geeks.

TreetopAngelRN2: too bad, I wear it proudly!

Musiquelle26: Mystery and crime novels are the thing, I think

Dehede011: There is something else that I'll bet also got RAH disliked

Musiquelle26: Grr, someone got me hooked on a mystery series

DavidWrightSr: My brother-in-law was that weird. Had a degree in Musical
Education. Convinced the Navy that M.E. was Mechanical Engineering and
wound up as engineering officer on several ships

Sarah Hoyt: Got call from 2nd graders teacher today. Among other things
she'd like to know why he always writes about aliens.

AGplusone: Greatest miss: Abraham Lincoln Baird 29, father of a very good
friend. Didn't have a clue he was classmate. He's dead of course, how.

AGplusone: now

Dehede011: Remember in the service the occasional guy that was thought
weird that was also popular with the ladies

Dehede011: The ducks couldn't stand that

DavidWrightSr: Of course, he actually did learn the engineering that they
threw at him. Became Exec on his last ship just before he had a heart
attack. Died at 39

Musiquelle26: I just remember being considered an unfavorable thing for not
dating all my sergeants

DavidWrightSr: One of my kid's teachers was absolute convinced that we were
writing his papers for him. They were typewritten and 'way above their'
level. My kids were using computers for writing their stuff in the second
grade and that was their level

Dehede011: Did you ever hear about Chesty Puller and his HS Latin class

TreetopAngelRN2: we were all a bunch of bad kidsO:-)

Dehede011: Chesty Puller was Commandant of the USMC

DavidWrightSr has left the chat room.

TreetopAngelRN2: ga Ron

AGplusone: I went ballastic and we came down in the
principal's office, but it didn't do my daughter a bit of good.

Sarah Hoyt: Now, Robert behaves better. But it seems like
every year I have to get on my broom and fly around the school for a while.

Dehede011: He wasn't doing good in Latin and his teacher was
always on him for reading behind his notebook

Dehede011: Finally she threw him out of class and demanded he
empty his desk

AGplusone: If it ain't invented here, she must be plagerizing.

Dehede011: She discovered he had translated every latin
textbook in the school and local library

Dehede011: As long as it was on warfare

TreetopAngelRN2: well of course David, she MUST be cheating

AGplusone: Yeah, I haven't been successful, so surely you
can't do better.

TreetopAngelRN2: got a few of those accusations myself when in
school

TreetopAngelRN2: amazing Ron

Sarah Hoyt: Robert's ecology teacher wanted to give him
detention because he was two minutes late to a class. He comes from the
other building, clear across and only has five minutes. Sigh. THAT was
the latest outing on the broom.

AGplusone: Goodness, I have a degeee in edication

Dehede011: John Taylor Gatto says give up and go to home
schooling

TreetopAngelRN2: teachers are scared the kids will learn more
than they know

gordonsollars has entered the chat room.

AGplusone: I even ran into that on the Three B's website.

AGplusone: If you ain't a teeecher, you don't no nothin'

Sarah Hoyt: I should. All my homeschooling friends say I should.

DavidWrightSr: Got Booted. David can you send me the part I missed.

BPRAL22169: It's a big commitment.

Dehede011: Sarah, ????

AGplusone: Yes. Coming up.

Sarah Hoyt: Oh, yeah, and then at the parent teacher conference, first time
Dan and I went in, we were told we were recent imigrants from Russia.

Dehede011: How did they get that??

Sarah Hoyt: Considering I grew up in Portugal and Dan is a Connecticut
Yankee, this was disturbing.

Sarah Hoyt: Particularly since the fact that we spoke Russian (?) at home
apparently was holding our kid back.

gordonsollars: I see a number of folks are still here. It is getting late
EST.

Sarah Hoyt: I SOUND russian.

Sarah Hoyt: And Dan is short, stocky and has a beard.

Dehede011: Okay

TreetopAngelRN2: must be Russian

BPRAL22169: Still prime time PDT

Sarah Hoyt: Mountain time.

TreetopAngelRN2: laundromat is open all night...I have plenty of time

gordonsollars: ;-)

Sarah Hoyt: I have a story due tomorrow, to finish.

Sarah Hoyt: But hey, the night is young.

Sarah Hoyt: And I only have 3k words to go. ;-)

TreetopAngelRN2: I have twelve hours to waste

DavidWrightSr: How do you happen to govorite po-russkij Sarah?

gordonsollars: That's what I used to say when it was only 11:00 PM

TreetopAngelRN2: Gee, Sarah...that's how I write papers

Dehede011: About 1000 to 1500 a day is all I can possibly write

Sarah Hoyt: It's the only way. Adrenaline.

Musiquelle26: Hey, everyone has an open invite to tell me to get busy on
the writing from now on

DavidWrightSr has left the chat room.

AGplusone: He's booted again. Everyone keep back ups.

Sarah Hoyt: And not bellyaching.

AGplusone: DavidWrightSr has left the chat room.

Musiquelle26 (8:18:52 PM): I have poor at home work skills

Sarah Hoyt (8:19:00 PM): 17k edited, a day is average. When I'm actually working.
DavidWrightSr has entered the chat room.

DavidWrightSr: shto sluchilos?

AGplusone: How's that dave?

Musiquelle26: do you prefer logs saved in txt or htm?

Sarah Hoyt: I do not speak Russian. French, Portuguese, very bad Italian,
rusty German, and vestigial swedish, but NO Russian. I just sound it.

Sarah Hoyt: Mid range hearing loss might be responsible.

DavidWrightSr: htm. I keep raw logs in htm, convert them to txt and re-html
them

Musiquelle26: ok

AGplusone: Hi, Gordon. Vas ist los?

AGplusone: Need another Ginny story ....

Sarah Hoyt: Steph changed colors on my display...

Musiquelle26: I did?

Sarah Hoyt: From blue to pale green.

Sarah Hoyt: Not sure why.

gordonsollars: Getting by. But you have to remember that I was lucky to be
born in an ENglish-speaking country, since it is the only language I can
speak.

Sarah Hoyt: And Dave, from yellow to grey.

Musiquelle26: Must be an effect of saving

TreetopAngelRN2: LOL, Gordon!

Sarah Hoyt: Lucky, Gordon, lucky. LOL.

Dehede011: I speak three languages, English, Hillbilly and Pig Latin

Sarah Hoyt: My youngest, on the other hand, was born speaking Chinese.

TreetopAngelRN2: yikes!

AGplusone: 'tis true. I hardly spik Ingish.

Musiquelle26: English, Southern, and Military

Sarah Hoyt: Oh, I learned languages in self-defense. Someone directed me to
languages against my will, so my revenge was to take A LOT of languages.

gordonsollars: I have a story about my attempt to learn Russian, and I have
a story about meeting Mr. and Mrs. Heinlein.

Musiquelle26: I can still read French, and puzzle through written Spanish

Sarah Hoyt: Most of them are gone.

Sarah Hoyt: Yes.

gordonsollars: WHcih should I tell?

Sarah Hoyt: Gordon, story.

AGplusone: /ga please Gordon

Sarah Hoyt: The Heinlein one.

Dehede011: GA Gordon

Sarah Hoyt: Well, both, but the Heinlein one first.

TreetopAngelRN2: I speak Wyomin', which is barely understood in Montaner

AGplusone: "where the elks is as big as buffalo"

Sarah Hoyt: and it gets mighty lonely?

TreetopAngelRN2: LOL! I'm going to send you a picture of the snow!

Musiquelle26: We had snow today...rarity

Musiquelle26: kids loved it

gordonsollars: It was at the third annual Conference on Space Development.

Sarah Hoyt: No snow. I swear the storms are detouring around us. My trees
are dying. I like my trees.

TreetopAngelRN2: we finally got some!

Sarah Hoyt: Go, Gordon.

AGplusone: Saw Sunday morning last week and guess what their final sequence
was: elk as big as buffalo

TreetopAngelRN2: that's just plain silly, glad I was at work!

AGplusone: keep goin' Gordon

gordonsollars: I had attended the first two, which had been started by the
L5 Society. I have not kpet up with these meetings, but in those days
(early '80s) it was an amazing gathering of folks.

AGplusone: ... and ...

TreetopAngelRN2: I'll bet...

Sarah Hoyt: gwon

gordonsollars: The Heinleins were at each of the first three, as was Jerry
Pournelle, Robert Forward, Gerard K. O'Neill, and other folks like John
McCarthy, the inventer of the LISP programming language.

gordonsollars: Oh, and a funny looking guy playing excellent piano in teh
hotol lounge, who later introduced himself as Marvin Minsky.

AGplusone: LOL

TreetopAngelRN2: you're turning blue Sarah

Sarah Hoyt: [pant. whimper]

Sarah Hoyt: :-X

gordonsollars: At least all these folkd were at teh first conference, and
many at the later ones. At teh first one I met CHuck and Linda Coffin (whom
I think some of you know) and a woman named Barbara Paskay.

AGplusone: [I wanna see the pony, the pony, and it;s gonna be good, I know
it!]

AGplusone: Right. Retired SF/.

gordonsollars: Barbara had apparently met the Heinleins before, and Chuck
and Linda were invited to dine with the Heinleins at the first conference.

AGplusone: "Doc" Coffin, good friends of Ginny.

AGplusone: GF =green beanies, sneaky pete, special forces

gordonsollars: Well, when I got to the third annual conference (in San
Francisco), I looked around for my conference buddies, but none of Chuck,
Linda, and Barbara were at that one.

Dehede011: Dave, did you ever know George Dooley?

AGplusone: GF = SF

AGplusone: no

BPRAL22169: Ginny was. that was when I met her the first time.

Sarah Hoyt: Still holding :-X They don't have a blue icon.

gordonsollars: I remembered that Barbara had said that Campari was one of
Mrs. Heinlein's favorites - Barbara had in fact presented Mrs. Heinlein
with a bottel at the last two conferences.

gordonsollars: So I got a bottle, and gave it to the hotal management to
give to Mrs. Heinlein, along with a note that said, "In the absence of the
Coffins and Barbara, please allow me to continue this tradition."

Sarah Hoyt: Wow.

Dehede011: Very good

Sarah Hoyt: Very gentlemany.

TreetopAngelRN2: Nice!

gordonsollars: Now, at an SF conference, I suspect SOP would have been for
the hotel to blow off my request - humdreds, if not thousands would be
trying to do such things. But the L5 meetings were different.

BPRAL22169: The Palace is not an ordinary hotel, either.

gordonsollars: OK, it /was/ gentlemanly, but it was also shameless
namedropping. ;-)

Dehede011: Gordon, on the other hand to many hotels it would have just been
another bottle to sell

Dehede011: Gordon may I respond with a Ginny story that perhaps suggests
how she would take it

AGplusone: Very nice, Gordon.

TreetopAngelRN2: ga Ron

Sarah Hoyt: And it took some daring. I for one never would have. It took
months for two people to convince me to send her a birth announcement and a
letter.

Sarah Hoyt: ga.

Dehede011: I once was talking to her and told her of my best friend having
been a student of RAH's brother at WP

gordonsollars: In any event, the next morning I got a call in my hotel room
saying, "Hello, this is Virgina Heinlein."

AGplusone: considering Sarah had a son born 7.7 she named Robert Anson

Dehede011: ga

Sarah Hoyt: =-O

Sarah Hoyt: ga

Dehede011: Has Gordon still got the floor??

gordonsollars: She invited me (and my guest) to join them for breakfast. I
had to think a moment...

gordonsollars: I would be happy to yield at this time

TreetopAngelRN2: NO!!!!

Sarah Hoyt: go on

Dehede011: No, not at all. I just couldn't tell if there was more to tell.
LOve your story

TreetopAngelRN2: Finish it Gordon!=-O

Musiquelle26: stop now and I send virtual tickles to you

Sarah Hoyt: (gentlemany, daring AND cruel.... um... have we met?)

Sarah Hoyt: [I'm JOKING!]

Musiquelle26: I'm not :-D

Dehede011: In any case the story I know only works as a response to yours

gordonsollars: Well, of course, I didn;t have to think at all, in fact I
couldn't. I said yes.

Dehede011: That is understandable

Sarah Hoyt: Paralyzed with embarrassement?

Sarah Hoyt: (Projecting)

gordonsollars: My girlfriend and I went down to the hotel restaurant and
got in a long line wating for a table.

TreetopAngelRN2: isn't it hard to say 'yes' when your lower jaw is on the
floor???

Sarah Hoyt: :-D

Sarah Hoyt: I'm so glad I wasn't the only one who went in holy awe of
them.... I thought I was being a fool.

gordonsollars: I couldn't spot the Heinleins at first, then I saw Mr.
Heinlein explaining to the hostess that he was going to be joined by
someone, but that that person would have to recognize him.

TreetopAngelRN2: I think the awe would have lasted a few minutes, then I
would have remembered my manners and treated them like I treat everyone I
meet.

gordonsollars: We stepped forward and joined Mr. Heinlein (Mrs. Heinlein
was already seated at a table), as every eye in that line was upon us.

TreetopAngelRN2: :-D

gordonsollars: I don't remember too many details after that,and I am pretty
sure I made a fool of myself. I do remember that Mr, Heinlein asked each of
us what we were going to order, and then ordered for all of us.

BPRAL22169: Host's privilege

gordonsollars: Also, that when I explained that I did computer work, he
said that Mrs. Heinlein was the computer expert in their family.

gordonsollars: Indeed, host's privilege. His whole manner was of another
era.

gordonsollars: To this day, I refer to him as "Mr. Heinlein: because of
that meeting.

Musiquelle26: Good night friends

gordonsollars: It is different now, in that alt.fan.heinlein has some folks
who have actually met or both of them.

Musiquelle26: tis midnite

gordonsollars: But back in, say, 1993-94, a lot of posters were saying
"Robert" this, and "Bob" that, when it was clear they had never met him.

TreetopAngelRN2: Night Steph!

Musiquelle26 has left the room.

BPRAL22169: He did seem to prompt this automatic respect.

Dehede011: nite steph

DavidWrightSr: I know. I was very hesitant about calling him Robert when
talking with Ginny. But RAH or Mr. Heinlein felt very strange and that is
why I asked her. She thought it very normal that I should call him Robert.

Dehede011: He and she were old fashioned gentle people

BPRAL22169: I finally compromised on calling him "R"

TreetopAngelRN2: I had an English prof, had the same effect on me,
coincidently he was from Missouri...

Dehede011: I called him "Mr. Heinlein" She got me moved over to RAH

Dehede011: LOL

BPRAL22169: I'm giving out -- time for me to leave.

TreetopAngelRN2: Night Bill!

Sarah Hoyt: Well, I'm very different. I'm a fanatic, see. When a writer
friend said "Bob Heinlein" I got up, got in his face and told him, "Take
off your shoes and cover your face, you're trespassing on sacred ground."

BPRAL22169: Have fun.

Dehede011: nite Bill

Sarah Hoyt: So, he still thinks I'm nuts. Fanatic, I tell you.

BPRAL22169 has left the room.

Sarah Hoyt: But it annoyed me.

Sarah Hoyt: ... as if he'd gone to school with him, you know...

Dehede011: Nite folks, I have run out of time. Bye

Dehede011 has left the room.

TreetopAngelRN2: dropping like flies

gordonsollars: I'm going to have to leave as well. THe Russian story will
have to wait. ;-)

TreetopAngelRN2: Night Gordon, it's a good story!

Sarah Hoyt: Shoot. IT's a wonderful story.

Sarah Hoyt: Thanks.

DavidWrightSr: It is getting late and we have been going on for 4 hours. I
will announce that we will have another session Saturday at 5:00 PM EST,
our regular time for anybody who wants to return or for people who couldn't
make it tonight

The Heinlein
Society was founded by Virginia Heinlein on behalf of her husband, science
fiction author Robert Anson Heinlein, to "pay forward" the legacy of Robert A. Heinlein to future generations of "Heinlein's Children."